‘Daunting’ caseload for Allentown Health Bureau
Officials urge residents who have tested postive to assist with contact tracing
As COVID-19 diagnoses surge, the Allentown Health Bureau is urging city residents who have tested positive to stay put and help with contact tracing.
More than 200 residents have tested positive since Sunday, and city Health Director Vicky Kistler said staff is unable to quickly reach out to all those residents — and the people with whom they had recent close contact.
Kistler called the caseload “daunting,” noting the Health Bureau was handling an average of only five to 10 cases a day until two weeks ago. Residents need to quarantine as soon as they learn they have tested positive for COVID-19, she emphasized.
While residents remain in their homes for the mandatory 10-day isolation period, the bureau is asking them to get in touch with everyone they were close to in the 48 hours before their first symptoms. If residents have no symptoms, they should reach out to everyone with whom they had close contact since they were tested. And they should urge those close contacts to quarantine for 14 days and separate as muchas possible from family members.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines close contact as being within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes as early as two days before symptoms appear.
Allentown residents account for 40%-50% of the roughly 500 Lehigh County residents who have tested positive since the weekend, according to the Pennsylvania Health Department.
Allentown residents account for 40%-50% of the roughly 500 Lehigh County residents who have tested positive since the weekend, according to the Pennsylvania Health Department.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, about 1 of every 27 Allentown residents has tested positive for COVID-19, according to city data.
Anyone with COVID-19 who experiences difficulty breathing, change in mental status or any serious complications should contact their doctor or call 911.
To dedicate more time and resources to contact tracing, the bureau last week suspended routine testing for sexually transmitted diseases and limited STD treatment to those with appointments. It also extended until March 31 the licenses of day cares and restaurants that were expiring soon.
City Council in September approved a reorganization of the Health Bureau so it could take advantage of $5 million in coronavirus-related grants over the next three years. It included the creation of four positions: one bilingual communicable disease investigator and statistician and three bilingual medical assistants.
Kistler said the bureau has filled two of the three medical assistant positions and expects to fill the investigator and statistician position soon. It also hired five part-time contact tracers with the grant funding.
The staff is busy not just with contact tracing this week, but with fielding questions from the public on the tighter restrictions the state recently imposed on mask wearing and gatherings.
Identifying the contacts of COVID-19 patients and ensuring they do not interact with others is critical to protecting communities from further spread.
Pennsylvania has about 200 case investigators and more than 1,600 contact tracers
identifying and interviewing people with COVID-19, as well as providing information and support to the contacts of those patients. This includes the work of local and county health entities, partner organizations and the Regional Response Health Collaboration Program within the Human Services Depart
ment as well as volunteers in some places.
The state also is working with nearly 150 organizations to identify problems and find solutions to improve contact tracing efforts in six regions across the state. Each regional partnership has met at least once, and includes public health
staff, health providers, academic institutions and community organizations, among others.
The state is prioritizing case investigations based on the extent of exposure a person had and the vulnerability of people potentially exposed. People are urged to answer the call from a case investigator and to provide
as much information as possible. Investigators are trained public health professionals with specialized skills and a thorough understanding of patient confidentiality.